Posts Tagged ‘arts

A major local exhibition is approaching, but I’ve done very little painting over the last year or two. I missed the same event in 2016, but want to participate this year.

My hope of completing one or two new works has been undermined by the weather. It’s been too hot to work in my garage studio. This month we’ve only had one day below 30 degrees C, and throughout January it was the same. Most days we’ve been in the high 30s, with a few over 40 degrees C. Not the best conditions for painting in an uncooled garage.

As a compromise I’ve looked back at some of my earlier paintings and have decided to rework one of the larger canvases. What started out as this:

Now looks more like this:

The difference in the crucifixion image is an illusion caused by different lighting conditions when the two photos were taken.

No change was made to that part of the painting.

More work needs to be done, but at this stage I’m considering two or three different ideas. Entries for the exhibition need to be in by 3rd March, so I have a little over two weeks to finish my changes.

Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

I can only remember having two ambitions when I was growing up. The first was to become a Beatle.
The group’s early hit “She Loves You” was a big favourite of mine as a six year old.

The second was to be a script writer.
In the latter years of primary school I regularly wrote short scripts to be acted in class, most of which were rewritings of TV shows or films I’d recently seen. Thanks to a visiting student teacher, some of them even made it the “stage” in front of the class.

Neither of those career ambitions was fulfilled.

Sadly John, Paul George and Ringo split up before they could add me as a fifth member of their group, and my writing ambition got lost somewhere on the road of practicality.
I suppose my upbringing didn’t prepare me to take the risks that would have been needed to become a writer. I could only see a similar path as the one taken by my parents: get a secure job, get married, have a family. A writing career wouldn’t easily fit into that scenario, and more importantly, I was never disciplined enough to make it fit.

From my early 20s onwards, another complication came into my life: committed church involvement.
I even gave up a Personnel Management course at college because it clashed with mid-week church meetings
That effectively killed a career direction I could have had, but sparked a desire to be a professional minister.

While I knew I didn’t have the temperament to be a pastor, the idea of being a “professional” preacher was very appealing. Despite a long standing fear of public speaking, I loved having occasional opportunities to preach and for the first time I felt comfortable speaking to a large group.

Thankfully God pulled the rug from under my misplaced feet, with the resulting shakeup eventually leading me to recognise the gulf between my experience within the church system and a biblically compatible life of discipleship.

Now isn’t THAT is an ambition we should all have?
To live a biblically compatible life of discipleship!

When I look at what that REALLY means, it seems like the Beatles and scriptwriter paths might have been easier options – but then I need to remind myself that it’s not an ambition I, or any of us, need to face alone.
HE works WITH us.

“…work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.”

The Eurovision song contest was an annual TV event in my family’s house when I was growing up in England. Maybe partly because we had only two channels, later reduced to one when the tuner on our TV set broke.
It was an earlier, less consumer driven era when people of my parent’s background were careful with their money, so repairs or replacement were out of the question.

After moving to Australia in the early 70s, Eurovision was consigned to memory – no longer relevant or accessible. By the time Australian TV started to broadcast it I was no longer interested in the kind of music it featured.

This year, for the first time since leaving England, I chose to watch most of it; because of the presence of Dami Im as a contestant from Australia (apparently Europe’s newest state).

Gloria and I have followed Dami’s career from her first appearances on Australia’s X Factor, where she was expelled in the early stages due to forgetting the words of her song, on to her readmission to the competition, and finally through to her victory in the final.

When she was entered as Australia’s contestant in Eurovision we wished her well, and wanted to see her performance as compared to the other contestants.
It was exciting to see she was the leader after the first round of scores were tallied and only slightly disappointing when she was tipped into second place by the eventual winner, Jamala of Ukraine.

While we thought Dami far outshone the majority of the entries, I felt the Ukrainian’s passionate performance of her very personal song 1944 made her standout.

The song raised some controversy as it centred on Russian atrocities in WWII that affected her great grandmother. Some saw the song was actually addressing Russia’s current relationship with Ukraine, and should be banned according to Eurovision’s policies on political songs. Adding to that controversy, the Russian entrant had been favourite to win the competition but was pushed into third place behind Ukraine and Australia.

It’s been over a year since I’ve entered my work into an exhibition, but yesterday I dropped four paintings into the local gallery to be included in their annual “Blokes’ Exhibition”.

2015 was a lazy year during which I did little painting. The only thing I started remains unfinished, but this year I have at last picked up my brushes again. While I have very little new output I wanted to give my support to the “Blokes” in the hope that it continues as a regular event in the gallery. I sorted out some of my older work and added the only painting I’ve done this year.

When I look at what I’ve submitted, I find two of them are appropriately relevant to the feast of Passover. The one in the illustration is called Passover and was the first of my paintings that I was really happy with, it gave me confidence that I wasn’t wasting time (and paint) in trying to be an artist.

The following painting is another old one I’ve entered, called Redemption.
Not illustrated in the photo is the basic frame that I made for it that I think has improved it considerably.

With this one I won first prize in the mixed media category at the agricultural show a few years ago. [Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, but it was the only entry in that category].

At the time of posting this I don’t have photos of the other two paintings. I might get the chance to take some at the gallery on the weekend.

On the weekend I went to the National Gallery in Canberra. I think it was my first time this year, after making multiple visits each year since 2011 when I first started painting.

Every time I went to Canberra, the gallery would be one place I’d regularly visit. On one occasion I spent a whole day there, apart from an hour when I walked down the road to the nearby National Portrait Gallery.

This year I’ve done very little painting, and as a result had less desire to go to the NGA.

A few weeks ago I caught a short news item on TV about recent changes to the Gallery’s exhibition spaces.
In the simplest terms, there had been a switching of the International and Australian galleries. What had been downstairs, (International paintings) had been swapped with those that had been upstairs (Australian paintings).
Another claimed change was the lighting of Pollock’s Blue Poles. New lights had been created specifically for the Pollock to give a truer view of the colours used, so the painting for the first time would look exactly as it should.

This was my first visit since the changes, and I was very disappointed with what had been done.

Firstly the place seemed over-lit. The brightness created a clinical sterility.
Secondly I felt there was no logical flow of ideas, styles or eras in the display of the art.
I could also see no difference with Blue Poles, despite the special lighting.

On the positive side, Colin McCahon’s Victory Over Death 2 had a much better location. It was once again hanging at a more favourable height after spending a couple of years of hung 4 metres above floor level over an enquiry counter.

Also, near VOD2 I saw Abendland [Twilight of the West] by Anslem Kiefer for the first time. A massive 4 metre x 4 metre heavily textured work that I loved.

It is now one of my three favourites in the gallery. The other two being McCahon’s VOD2 and Imants Tillers Terra Incognita, another massive artwork that is full of detail; a painting that could be viewed for hours to find all of the images and text it incorporates.